Content They’ll Pay For
I predicted that this would be the year of the virtual event and I was right, or right-ish. Associations have embraced virtual events in the form of webinars but they have not gone the full route to virtual conferences.
Those that have tried the larger format have concentrated over much on the trade show floor—where virtual events started and now seem stuck—and not enough on the content. No one goes to a conference just because of the trade show. They go because of the speakers, the sessions and the networking. Once associations break the mindset of a live conference and tap into the digital realm’s ability to allow users access to deeper and deeper layers of related content, they will have a new meeting format that is as compelling in its way as the live version.
Where webinars are concerned, I thought associations would see digital’s strengths to provide education and interactivity. Instead, they saw cuts to their members’ travel budgets. So I was right but for the wrong reason.
In any case, associations are still struggling to find new sources of revenue for digital delivery.
- The meeting budget and the digital budget may be in different hands.
- The adjustments necessary to shift live delivery to digital, not to mention shifts in marketing and promotion, may not be understood.
Some associations gave up at that point, waiting to figure out what to do before they did anything. Others just dove in (good for them!) but are now having to step back and decide how to continue to fund something that has no budget of its own.
MarketingProfs offers some great ideas. If you’re not in marketing, you may never have heard of them but, in the last couple of years, they have built a successful webinar business atop a premium subscription model. Breaking down what they do, here are some ideas for associations.
- Offer a price for one-off registrations (MarketingProfs charges $129) but build a premium subscription package that allows access to special content (MarketingProfs charges $229). Most of MarketingProfs’ webinar revenues come from the latter.
- Move webinar content from the meeting department to the editorial department. Editors are more in touch with the issues members are interested in at the moment. They also have access to the right presenters—the same sort of people they would interview for an article or ask to write an expert column—and can judge the quality of the content.
- Hand pick the presenters and make them submit their presentations to the editors in advance. If you don’t keep the quality high, you won’t gain loyal users and they won’t recommend your webinars. (MarketingProfs has a 75% response rate to its post-webinar surveys and a 98% favorable referral rating.)
- Come up with a repeatable format so you can scale as you gain subscribers. You don’t want to reinvent the wheel every time.
- Build engagement and brand loyalty before starting to sell sponsored webinars. You will have a better chance of attracting users to the sponsors’ offerings if they already trust the quality.
- For sponsored webinars, insist on the same vetting of the content as you would for your own programming. Craft guidelines for how much of a sales message they can contain but keep the content quality high. Neither you nor the sponsor will succeed if sponsored webinars become extended advertisements.
